[csaa-forum] ACS Virtual Lecture Series, July 31: Rosemary Overell – Clever Cunts in the Creative Nation: Blood Duster’s Fisting the Dead in Keating’s Australia

[Timothy Laurie]

***Apologies for cross-posting***
CGBANNERINDICATOR

Dear colleagues,

The Association for Cultural Studies (ACS) welcomes you to an upcoming talk in its Virtual Lecture Series, by Rosemary Overell (University of Otago), titled ‘Clever Cunts in the Creative Nation: Blood Duster’s Fisting the Dead in Keating’s Australia’ (followed by a Q&A), which will take place on July 31st, 1 PM New Zealand Standard Time /NZST (GMT +12) (more information underneath).

For more information on the Virtual Lecture Series and upcoming talks, please visit: https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/virtual-lecture-series/<https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/virtual-lecture-series/>



Rosemary Overell (University of Otago) – Clever Cunts in the Creative Nation: Blood Duster’s Fisting the Dead in Keating’s Australia
July 31st, 2025
1 PM New Zealand Standard Time /NZST (GMT +12)

Abstract: Blood Duster’s 1993 debut, Fisting the Dead is, in their words “pure evil filth” and the first Australasian ‘porno’ grindcore album. With tracks such as ‘Vulgar Taste of Rotten Cunt’ and ‘Raping the Elderly’ Fisting was deliberately offensive. Drawing on interviews with the band, this talk considers the subcultural work of causing offense in a sub-genre of extreme metal where offensiveness is a requirement. Through a consideration of how Blood Duster mobilized humour and exaggeration I consider how Fisting might work as a ‘stupid’ text in the, ostensibly, clever and creative Australian nation c. 1993. I ask: where does such sordid music sit within the context of the 1990s Australian iteration of the ‘culture wars’ when a progressive government was pushing for a rise of cosmopolitan middle class creative production? Fisting – in its vulgarity and contradictions – offers an insight in the subcultural politics of gender, taste and cultural value.

Bio: Rosemary Overell is a Senior Lecturer in the Media, Film & Communication Programme at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. She is currently working on a book about Blood Duster’s Fisting the Dead and has published extensively on the subcultural politics of extreme metal.



To register for this free event, please email: vls at cultstud.org<mailto:vls at cultstud.org>

Please note that email registration is an automated process. If you do NOT receive a reply to your email with the relevant information within an hour, please check your spam folder, as some ISPs will treat this automated reply as spam. If the automated VLS message is not in your spam folder, please email info at cultstud.org<mailto:info at cultstud.org> for more personal assistance.

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Founded in 2002, the ACS aims at forming and promoting an effective worldwide community of cultural studies. It is intended as a tool for building strong interdisciplinary and transnational connections by offering meaningful meeting places for the great diversity of committed scholars in this field. The Virtual Lecture Series, launched in May 2021, is an ongoing programme of online presentations by cutting-edge cultural studies theorists and practitioners and serves as a way to keep establishing these connections when we are no longer able to easily meet in person. If you would like to support the association’s work by becoming a member (which enables us to continue to organise events like these), you can do so here: https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/membership/<http://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/membership/>



Upcoming VLS talks (more details TBA):

August – Hsuan Hsu (University of California)
September – Lisa Calvente (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
October – Camilla Mørk Røstvik (University of Aberdeen)
November – Dianlin Huang (Communication University of China)
December – Sarah Bufkin (University of Birmingham)
January 2026 – Danzhou Li (Shenzhen University)
February – Gilbert Caluya (Deakin University)



For more information, visit https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/virtual-lecture-series/<https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/virtual-lecture-series/>

Archive of the previous talks https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/archive/<https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/archive/>

Recordings are available on the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/@association_for_cultural_studies_-_acs<https://archive.org/details/@association_for_cultural_studies_-_acs>



For questions and comments, please contact info at cultstud.org<mailto:info at cultstud.org>

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